Water Polo: Olympic Champion Gábor Csapó Passes Away

Olympic, world and European water polo champion Gábor Csapó has died at the age of seventy-two. He was hospitalized in early November for respiratory failure and was kept under deep anesthesia on a ventilator.

"We have lost another legend, who was not only an outstanding player in the teams he played for, but who also shaped the sport in a decisive way with his personality, knowledge and charisma. He is one of the people who have given Hungarian water polo the weight it carries in Hungarian sport, and indeed in world sport, that it is consistently among the best, that it is an inescapable factor", the President of the Hungarian Water Polo Federation, Norbert Madaras said.

Gábor Csapó started playing water polo at the age of nine at the northern Budapest club Újpest Dózsa, before moving to Szeged in 1972 to continue his university studies. His talent is shown by the fact that national coach Dezső Gyarmati selected him from the second division for the 1973 world championship team, and he scored three goals in the final match against the Soviet Union, Hungary winning 5-4.

He played a total of 272 games for the Hungarian national team, winning a gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and a bronze medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. In addition to the World Cup victory in Belgrade, he also has three World Championship silver medals and has stood on the podium at the European Championships three times (in 1974 and 1977 at the very top, in 1983 as silver medalist).